This modest but important collection provides information about
the peoples who inhabited Eastern Europe from the 2nd century
BC to the 4th century AD, notably about two ancient
archaeological cultures of the Bastarnai people: the Zarubintsy
and Poineshti-Lukashevka cultures. The first is represented by
objects uncovered in burial places and settlements in the Polesye
area (near the River Pripyat), and the second by objects from the
Dolinyany burial ground in the Chernovitsky region.

The Bastarnai have already vanished, but according to records
by ancient authors they inhabited areas in the lower reaches of
the River Danube, in the Carpathian Mountains and around the
Dnieper from the 2nd century BC to the 3rd century AD.

Finds from the Brest-Trishin burial ground on the western part of
the River Bug introduce us to the culture of German tribes,
including the Goths, who migrated from the Baltic Sea to the
Black Sea littoral in the late 2nd and early 3rd centuries AD.

Chernyakhovskaya culture, covering a vast territory from
Romania to the town of Kursk in Russia, is represented by
objects discovered in ancient burial grounds and settlements. Of
particular interest is Lepesovkha in Southern Volyn, the best
studied settlement of the most civilized of all the European
barbarians, which has provided remarkable examples of pottery,
glassware and bone combs, often with Greek and runic
inscriptions, as well as pictograms which have not been
decoded.